Ramblings and ruminations about and around Asheville, my “Appalachian barrio”—nestled at the confluence of the Swannanoa River and the French Broad River in Western North Carolina.

Wednesday, March 15, 2017

ME, AMERICA, and The World

I AM sometimes told, when I join in Facebook discussions, that I don't
know anything about America. I think it's one of those “uninformed”
retorts that need to be corrected. Truth is, many countries—from
East Timor to Trinidad and Tobago, Chad to the Philippines—have
baseline knowledge of America more than America is aware of what's
going on actually in say sub-Saharan Desert nation (unless one goes
to the university and be an “expert in Kenya” or gain “doctorate
in a subject called Myanmar”). I was once or twice asked in my
talks before students if the Philippines is a province of India or if
we speak English back home. That's understandable. They honestly
don't know. They weren't told. Meantime, America—by way of its
foreign policy, economic protectionism, media giants' octopus grip on
“global culture,” and Hollywood—peddles or informs the universe
what's going on in here, 24/7.

Let's
zoom in on me as a Filipino who talks about America a lot. First,
technically the Philippines is a colony of the United States of
America for 46 years—beginning with the signing of the Treaty of
Paris in 1898 following the defeat of the Spanish Armada in
Spanish–American War to the “recognition” of the independence
of the Republic of the Philippines on July 4, 1946. My hardline
Leftist comrades will argue that, of course—they believe we haven't
been outside the cloak of Uncle Sam. Anyhow, the education of what
America was didn't just commence with the introduction of English via
“benevolent assimilation” carried out by a group of
schoolteachers called Thomasites dispatched by President William
McKinley in 1901. We taught the kind of textbook English that
prevails to date. Nope, not the kind that Moon Zappa and the Valley
girls taught via Universal Studios. We still accentuate the “g”
in the verbal action “ing,” for example. Our Constitution was
patterned after the US Constitution although it has been considerably
modified or some entries amended through the years to fit our
sociocultural truths. Still, when Filipinos chide each other of
“colonial mentality,” that means adherence to anything Stateside.
Major survey firms like Pew Research lists Filipinos as #1 in terms
of people who love America.

History-wise
and literature-wise, our early education got lots of America so that
I could memorize all the US presidents, recite famous poems by Edgar
Allan Poe and Walt Whitman, and sing Stephen Foster songs at age 7.
There was even a time when I could rattle off all US states and their
capital cities and identify quotes by Patrick Henry, Alexander
Hamilton, and Thomas Jefferson. We are “so America” that our
Asian neighbors ridicule us as “mere brown Americans.”

Meantime,
as a journalist (since age 14), the country's media doesn't run of
supply of news and opinion of Washington's foreign policy and
“invasions” (because we willingly send troops to fight with
America in ALL her wars) etc etcetera. We are a super-obedient ally.
If there's some that weren't shared us, it's the details of the Civil
War and the Indian Wars. Obvious, I guess. So I took it upon myself
to read and research those—not just via books and google/wikipedia
but by actually traveling and talking with people in the heartland.
As a journalist, editor and publisher in America, I also covered
internal politics, Wall Street economics and so on and so forth.
Everyday I get news dispatches from dozens of establishments and
organizations, White House Press Office and activist nonprofits etc.

Do
I know enough of America? Nope. I still read and read and read—I
even read showbiz magazines like People and US Weekly. And I watch
and watch and watch. It's like a grand stage, America—especially
these days of Trumpism and a Left spectrum that never fails to bite
his distractions. I reckon, it's interesting to watch America these
days. Even Hollywood joins in like they haven't really taken part in
all these political pasodoble and rhumba. And with Social Media and
Facebook and all, not to know anything about America is close to
dumbness. And I don't think the rest of the world is dumb either.
They just don't talk as much as we do in the U S of A.